


Help Wanted

by Mithrakana



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: A Life Awash in Rock 'n Roll, Adult Content, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arguably Disturbing Themes, Colemance, F/M, Multi, Other, Polyamory, Secret Crush, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, The Selfishness and Selflessness of Love, Wodenism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-07 18:00:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4272774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrakana/pseuds/Mithrakana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An understaffed lunch rush on graduation day is Sara's special hell. When she bumps hips with a scruffy-looking stranger waiting tables in <i>her</i> overcrowded restaurant, he simply smiles at her and says hello.</p><p>---<br/>10-22-15. Indefinite hiatus punctuated by snatches of free time. Still cherished, written daily in my heart. Positive outlook on one day having time again!</p><p>xoxo,<br/>~Mithrakana</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pomp and Circumstance

Their families came in droves.

Little sisters yammered on with moms in cheap-made sandals, trendy blister-makers rubbing in the heat. Be they proud or bitter, over-dressed or under, the dads were gathered just alike. Obnoxious little brothers with their gel-slicked hair, and _grandparents –_ the bickering and joy ran generations deep.

Some drove, some flew. Some beamed, though many nagged or muttered snide. To the sole, they traipsed the grass so flat the campus groundskeepers kept cussy for a week.

Standing room beneath the shade trees was prime real estate, much preferred against the gleaming sea of folding chairs where hundreds sat awaiting death from sweat or boredom. Water bottles crinkled, programs turned to fans, the tops of thighs and feet turned pink as shrimp.

The commencement speaker was an eminent Sinologist, a woman, and fantastic. Her frenetic energy inspired no more than six or seven guests. The rest – _hundreds_ of them – were thinking as a hive mind thinks.

_When’s this bullshit **over?** What’s for lunch?_

 

* * *

 

“’Scuze me, missy. Ain’t no chicken in my wife’s fell-awful.”

_It starts._

For nine months of the year, Café Nostima was a bastion of culture in a sea of shit the size and shape of Texas. Sara’s regulars were mostly students and professors, sensitive and kind and somewhat strange. (Such were the sort of folk, it seemed, who took out loans to dedicate themselves to art or history.)

Their _families?_ This far South? Well. The _‘torture’_ in _‘tortured artist’_ has to come from somewhere. Café Nostima was plastered wall-to-ceiling with the pain each artist’s hometown caused, the burning urge to leave, the subsequent discovery of joy and life and love of self. From oil-on-canvas to mixed media to prose to kiln and back again. Dozens of expressions hung in cataloguing chaos, marked with fading price tags looped on string.

Of course, Sara’s charming patrons were all poor as piss. Though broke herself, her mouse-hole of a flat _did_ overflow with years of purchased art. Occasionally she’d buy a piece and keep it for the restaurant, like Pepper’s _Love Thine Own Reflection_ proudly mounted where her customers would queue for seats. The moulded plaster frame was faux-Baroque, matte gold slapped with clumpy strings of glitter glue. The glass was cracked, the words were red, deep etchings filled with crayon wax that ran with melting in the summer heat. The faded paper tag read _NFS._ No other mirror knew half as many lips.

_Can’t be the me you see_

_The me that never was_

_I break my mirror for different reasons now_

_Kiss here -- >_

In her three years serving table at Nostima, Pepper turned down half the boys at Orban University. She was graduating now, _right_ now, and so was Cat.

Finals week be damned – with graduation pending, many were the stomachs ulcerating over entertaining parents. Judgment, flashbacks, belittling, coming out and dumbing-down, the many splendid hells of small town PTSD.

_Ah, but we are **adults** now. We’re never going back. See here, the life we’ve made, the food we eat?_

Every year on graduation day, Orban’s newly ordained Bohemians brought the sweaty, narrow-minded, miserable maestros of their nightmares _straight_ to Sara. One family at a time, war-eyed twenty-somethings celebrated their identities by forcing scowling parents to eat (and _pay for_ ) “cuss-cuss and fell-awful” in an open-windowed restaurant with no A/C save the ceiling fans, no ‘pop’ on tap, and neon-orange abstract genitalia hanging on the Dutch door to the only toilet.

The pushovers among their peers sat smiling agreeably at Chili’s down the street.

Unfortunately for Sara, this year’s cohort was _very_ short on pushovers. This was Orban’s biggest graduating class to date, the hottest day on record for the year. No Pepper, and no Cat. Sara had no waitstaff for the graduation rush. Her kitchen was well-staffed, she had a timid bus boy, yes, but as for front of house? One plain-Jane nearly-30-something with fake pearl studs and no makeup, coming up.

**HELP WANTED**

Three weeks of that begging sign, and not a single bite. A new job waiting tables in a college town turned ghosty with the summer? Even art students, it seemed, had better sense.

Though the College Green was blocks away, Sara heard the endless voices of her nightmare start to cheer.


	2. Ranch Dressing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ _Sara_ ](www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJrEUK87pm8)
> 
>  
> 
> You will pull strange gifts from the heart of trees, oh  
> I’ve forgotten love, not forgotten me, oh no  
> Will you drag me into the heart of a boiling sea?  
> You can soothe my mind with your silence  
> Oh, Sara, I hear you calling me
> 
> You’re a golden beam breaking into the ocean deep  
> Not a single breath can be lead to escape, no  
> Now you cast your light and expose insane colors, oh  
> You can soothe my mind with your silence  
> Oh, Sara, I hear you calling me

* * *

The wait was long, the room was hot and loud, the ice maker was empty. The tubs of lemon wedges she’d spent all night slicing were nearly exhausted, and her dish boy was behind. The high chair she rarely needed was in high demand, and she was out of chicken nuggets for the kids meals. (So few of those fried nuggets ended up in bellies – they were trampled on the floor, squished in the nooks and crannies of the chairs. One kid  _stuffed them in her apron,_ and his parents didn’t _care._ )

Sara was a veteran of rushing understaffed. She wasn’t _smiling,_ but she was making do. Her hair was in a bun save strands that stuck in sweat behind her neck, her glasses had a greasy thumbprint smackdab in the center. These people weren’t her patient regulars, for sure, and _yes,_ their glaring made her chest feel tight.

But not _all_ of them were assholes. She was getting by.

It was Table 6 that made her lose control.

Time folds in on itself in crowded restaurants, even for the most well-seasoned tray-schleppers. A quiet family of three left cash with no receipt. They came and went so quickly she forgot to put the order in for the _new_ Table 6: the dad with the over-starched Wranglers, the whining wife with too much eyeshadow, their nigh-on catatonic son who slouched and poked his phone as though he’d never graduated anything.

The man was not the first to yell at her tonight, but he _was_ her first mistake. When they stormed out to wait in line at Chili’s, another family followed suit. Unfortunately for Sara, new patrons took their place before the bussing boy could bus.

She _handled_ it, but cracks in glass are known to spread.

Forty minutes later, Table 6 struck once again. A family of four this time, no starch to see, a downcast mother and a _gorgeous_ daughter and a teenage son who looked just like his fat-jawed dad. The kind of man who wears a cut-off t-shirt to his daughter’s graduation, says “what the fuck is wrong with you” when she suggests an appetizer, makes her split the cheapest sandwich with her mother.

 _Snort!_ “Look, Dad. Dad. DAD! Look, another queer. Goddam town’s full of ‘em.”

“Sick motherfuckers.”

Teenage boys are _always_ under skin, and Sara knew that. Still. _No one_ points across her restaurant and calls someone else a queer.

“Get out of my restaurant.”

When she told them to leave, of course, they made a scene. The boy spat on her, the dad threatened to sue her ass, called her a stupid bitch. She swore she caught the daughter smiling as they left.

Most would agree, Sara deserved a standing ovation, or at the very least a righteous smile and nod. She received only gawky-grouch impatience from the crowd.

_Too much._

She crumpled in her cramped-and-cluttered office for a moment, though time raced and pulled at her in all directions. That man was _big,_ and he was terrifying in a hundred different ways. A glance up at the clock – just 3 p.m. The restaurant _roared_ with hungry mouths. She shed a tear, but only one. Her hand trembled when she reached to wipe her cheek, but only barely. Her breathing followed shuddering suit, just as subtle.

She watched the seconds tick, she swallowed hard. She shoved off from her desk and tromp-rushed to the kitchen, a whole new hell of noise and heat and stainless steel.

The line man yelled his orders at the kitchen as he slammed the bell for waiting food, his face flushed from the heat lamps. No time for pleasantries, for brief-but-touching jokes, for kinship. The plates for Table 8 weren’t garnished. Non-skid shoes went squeaking as Sara lunged clear down the line to grab the sprinkling parsley. When she righted herself and turned to dress the plates, she hip-checked someone else.

Someone wide-shouldered and tall – a man. On _her_ side of the kitchen. Holding the ungarnished plates for Table 8.

His unrushed smile was so bright it belonged on a billboard somewhere, not in this muggy kitchen full of yelling panic.

“Hello.”

Sara only had time for a cursory glance. These artsy college kids, they _all_ looked homeless. His platinum hair was stringy, his coat – a _coat?_ – was tattered. Without looking away, Sara shouted to the kitchen: “Quién es este?”

“Su nuevo novio, jefe!”

The hesitation in his eyes suggested that he couldn’t grok the Spanish. Shyly, the stranger nudged the plates he held in Sara’s general direction. “I’m not like him. You wanted help.”

“Wh…”

The stranger bobbed the still-ungarnished left plate up and down. “He wants… ‘ranch’? But he bets this stupid restaurant doesn’t even have it.”

Nonplussed. “We don’t.”

Profoundly disappointed. “Oh.”


	3. Lemonade

Mystified as she was, Sara was in no position to refuse the stranger’s unexpected help. And what a help he was! His feet were quick, he smiled a lot, and people seemed to like him. She overheard one patron asking him, _who wears a coat in May?_

The young man’s chapped lips parted as he pondered, face comically contorted with the exercise of chasing logic. He squinted at the middle distance with his eyebrows bunched. “Ah-………… Is it rabbits? Oh. The blue house by the park!!”

Silence. Knowing glances shared across the table. The kitchen bell went _ding,_ and _zip!_ The table-waiting retard left that family to shake their heads and murmur, _bless his heart._ Sara was so consumed with watching his response out of the corner of her eye, she had to ask her table to repeat their order when he left.

* * *

Hallelujah is a _CLOSED_ sign rattling on a shutting door.

Café Nostima was quiet, save the sounds of cleaning in the kitchen. Sara turned her back on dirty floors, empty salt shakers and sugar caddies, piles of silver waiting to be rolled. She slouched into her favorite seat beside the store front’s window, crank-operated glass that tucked into the ceiling to permit the muggy evening breeze. The sky was dark, the passing cars were loud but few. A laughing group of students passed by on the sidewalk, clearly drunk.

Her cooling sweat gave her a chill. Sara shut her eyes and took a breath, waiting for adrenaline to ebb. Her feet hurt. She was _longing_ for a glass of lemonade, had been all night long – but the lemonade was gone. As she listened to the kitchen’s clanging nightly rituals, she wondered what her Yelp reviews would look like in the morning. No banter from the back. They were all exhausted, too.

It was then that she decided they’d stay closed tomorrow. _Family emergency._ Why not? Sara begged herself to stand, to tell the guys before they left. She couldn’t find the will.

The familiar gentle thud of glass on wood, a scraping chair beside her. A stirring spoon, the _tink-ta-tink_ of rattling ice cubes. Sara straightened up, opened her eyes, and there he was: A blonde-haired stranger with a glass of water and a little dish of lemon wedges.

_But I ran out of lemons hours ago._

His intoxicating smile was softer now, a gentle dimpling at the corners of his lips. His eyes were occupied with juicing wedges one by one, and after each he stirred. His voice was quiet, distracted.

“Behind the milk.”

Sara didn’t understand. Her head took on a dreamy feeling. He seemed… _vague._ Was he even sitting here? Had the restaurant business finally driven her insane?

The softest chuckle from his corner of the table built for two. What was he laughing at? As he stirred, he started reaching for the sugar caddy.

_…He’s making lemonade._

Only Sweet ‘N Low was left. Sara’s reptile brain imagined how _disgusting_ Sweet ‘N Low would taste, and as she did, he deftly leaned his chair back on its legs to snag two packets of Sugar in the Raw from Table 12. Tear, dump, stir. Tear, dump, stir. The glass rang as he guided it across the table to her hand with a triumphant little nod.

Her expression froze, bewildered. They stared into each other’s eyes as she numbly brought the glass up to her lips. When she tasted it and found it perfect – cold and sweet-but-bitter, the glass slick with condensation in her hand just as she liked it – she watched his smile grow brighter. Suddenly, he stood up from his chair and kindly asked: “Where is it? Ah - the broom?”

Bewildered, yes, _bewildered._ At this rate, her face would stick that way for life. She blinked at him, she didn’t answer. He waited patiently as Sara took him in from head to toe and back again.

A worn out pair of low tops, burgundy and one-time white. His faded jeans were worn thin at the knees. A double D-ring belt, black canvas. Narrow-waisted as he was, the loose end was quite long. He tucked it once behind the belt and through one loop, left it hanging offset at his upper thigh.

His tattered jacket – canvas too, but tan – was loaded to the hilt with zippers, buckles, pockets. Beneath the coat he wore a faded ringer tee, the collar over-stretched, riding low and loose against his clavicles. (She started at the silver scars that peeked around his neck.) Yellow letters cracked and peeling on varsity blue, encircling what used to be a roaring lion.

Minnitucky High.

At last, his face. His cheeks were pock-marked, his fair skin was leathery and dry. His oily hair was over-fine and stringy. Though he _looked_ as though he hadn’t bathed in days, she couldn’t smell a thing. Perhaps his hair was just as unforgiving as her own?

For the _life_ of her, she couldn’t pin an age on him. A 30-something aging well? A high schooler aging harshly? Through all of this his glacial eyes were watching her, amused and curious. Brown caught on blue and stayed. Finally, she said it.

“What's your name?”

“Oh...Cole. Hello.”

She watched his mouth. An accent that she couldn’t place. His voice was round and soft, it sounded like a dream. His coat was real, his shoes were real. The rest of him…She couldn’t understand. Her own voice was hard to find.

“Cole what?”

He shifted on his feet, his fingers found his pockets. For the first time in the chaos of this day, she saw him look uneasy. He looked away at nothing. “Nothing. Just… Cole.”

His downcast tone made Sara feel quite guilty. Her fingers traced the condensation on the glass she held as she considered what to do. His feet were still fidgeting, his chin was sinking low.

 _Obviously,_ the kid wanted a job. It was brave of him, just barging in and helping out. She liked that, and she sorely needed help. Still, she needed more than just a name. Her voice was hopeful, positive, inviting.

“Okay... Well, I'm Sara. Thanks for all the help today! Are you a student, Cole?”

He shook his head to answer no. He wilted, just a bit. He’d wilt a little more with every question Sara asked.

She pointed at his shirt. "You went to Minnitucky, though?"

He eyed her long-ways through his fallen bangs. He just...stared. She tried again. "You live around here?"

"Yes."

“...How old are you?”

He shrugged.

She squinted. Softly, she insisted. “You don’t know how _old_ you are?”

Simply, without ire: “No. Older than you.”

Her eyebrows hiked. Her voice began to strain with nerves. “How-…How can you _know_ that? And how did you know I wanted lemonade?”

He cringed. “I’m sorry…”

And he was gone. Just…fucking _gone._

Sara surged to her feet. She looked around, she called his name – nothing. She looked back at the table. The lemonade remained.

* * *

 

Sara hadn’t been this spooked since that time her older sister made her watch _Blair Witch Project_ in high school.

She shut the windows, but she left the place a mess. When she told the cooks to take a day tomorrow, nobody complained. When Marco asked her who that blonde guy was, she shook her head and squeaked goodnight.

This was not the sort of town where walking home at night made women feel unsafe, and yet…as Sara walked, her pulse drummed in her ears. Every muscle in her neck felt tight from stealing glances at her back. Her breath stopped every time she stepped into the dark that stretched between the halos of the street lights. She watched the trees, she watched the street. She hugged her arms beneath her breasts and hurried like a frightened mouse.

When at last she reached the door to her apartment, she was frightened to go in. She did, she hit the lights, and nothing – just her clutter. She stumbled in, she slammed the door, she melted back against it. 

Exhausted as she was, Sara didn’t fall asleep until the sun came up.


	4. Tzatziki

It was late afternoon when Sara dragged herself out of bed and back to Nostima. She’d missed delivery today. Teetering on the bottom step of her back stoop, she found a cardboard box of lemons. An invoice with a smiley face was taped to her back door. As she turned the key and stepped over the heavy box of fruit, she murmured at herself about how _strange_ last night’s dreams had been.

It must be the Lexapro. She was frightened of the crap, blamed _everything_ on it. She’d call Dr. Lazarus on Monday.

Sara toed the kickstand to prop that heavy metal door, she propped the screen, she pocketed her keys. Marco wasn’t here. Sara hefted heavy plates from lunchtime into night six days a week: she could handle a case of lemons.

She approached her undertaking from the bottom of the stairs. Unwatched and unworried at how foolish she may look, Sara squatted in her hippy-dippy flowy ankle skirt and took hold of the box. It had built-in handles, holes reinforced on either side. She grabbed, she hefted with a grunt, she stood.

A second pair of hands came crowding in the holes that served as handles, and she felt a gentle tugging at the box.

Out of nowhere, Cole was standing at the top of the stoop. He sounded jovial and kind as though the night before had never happened, as though they’d been close friends for years.

“Let me, Sara. It looks heavy!”

She _shrieked._

When she let go, he nearly dropped the lemons. When she tripped with staggering away from him, he _did._ The box broke on the steps. Fruit bounced and rolled in all directions as Cole lunged and clutched at Sara’s cotton camisole to stop her falling backwards. She turned her ankle in the chaos, lost a sandal, lost her footing altogether. Lightning-quick, Cole brought his other hand to steady Sara’s hip. The fabric of her airy shirt bunched in his grip, exposing both sides of the lacy bra she purchased just last week. On reflex, she clasped his wrist to stop her staggering.

Words rushed from him before Sara could scream again.

“Sorry-sorry-sorry please, just – I just wanted to help!” His voice was nearly crying as he begged. “Please don’t be afraid of me. I don’t – I don’t _want_ you to forg –”

She cut him off. Her voice was high with fright. “How did you – ! Let _go_ of me! What _are_ you?!”

He sounded desperate, frustrated. He didn’t let her go. “ _Cole!_ Just Cole!”

She found a modicum of sense among her panic. Her feet now solid on the bottom step, she repeated: “Cole, let me _go!”_

He did. His face was like a beaten puppy. “Sorry, Sara…”

And he was fucking _gone._ Again.

Though shaken, Sara handled the hallucinations much better the second time around. The sun was up, she was not deliriously tired.

Standing in her mountain of bruised lemons, Sara dug her cell phone from the pocket of her skirt. She had Dr. Laz on speed dial. She fixed her blouse and bent to ferret in the lemons for her sandal as she left a quiver-throated voicemail asking to be seen first thing on Monday morning, thank-you-very-much. She limped into the empty kitchen, fetched a stack of plastic tubs, and set to work collecting lemons from the ground. Her hands shook, and her heart raced, and her ankle _ached._ The word _schizophrenia_ came creeping in her mind.

* * *

 

When she walked into the front-end of the restaurant and found the place pristine, her mind went white.

_Two days. Two days left until Monday. Nothing’s real._

She’d do last night’s bookwork, then. Surely she was not too far insane for basic math.

She stood at the server’s kiosk by the kitchen, logged in, printed yesterday’s report. Forty-five open tickets…? There was a straw wrapper beside the monitor – she snatched it in her fingers, balled it up, glanced left to toss it in the trash.

_President Lincoln?_

The rubbish bin was filled with receipts, used lemon peels, silverware, and _cash._

Her heart sank. At her wit’s end, she kicked the can and watched its contents spill with clattering across the floor. A quarter rolled beneath the nearest table. She thought she’d be sick.

Cole whispered woeful from behind her. “Sara…? Did I do something wrong?”

She didn’t turn around. Instead, she carried on a conversation with her own delusion. _Two days left ‘til Monday. Nothing’s real._

She croaked, half-giddy with delirium. She stared down at the garbage strewn across the floor. “Ha – I guess so, yeah. None of your tables paid.”

“…’Paid’?”

A long breath through her nose, a steeling stare at artwork on the wall. She fought back tears – it was _terrible,_ feeling so lucid, watching herself go insane. Did her sister’s madness come this _fast?_

She threw the cash away herself. She _must_ have. Her lips trembled as she knelt to sort the money from the garbage on the floor. She never did look over her shoulder – Maybe her divergent self was standing there, maybe he wasn’t. What did it matter?

The arms around her waist felt realer than _anything_ had been in years. The ageless phantom whispered in her ear. It tickled, and she shivered as she sniffled.

“ _They leave me every year. I keep the fragments that they left behind, but never hear the end. Is that why I-…_ Oh. **_Sara._** You think…”

She’d been listening in a trance. His words froze, and his breath stopped, but his warm embrace remained. They stayed in limbo with her back against his chest. In spite of everything, Sara’s tear-streaked cheeks began to flush.

Cole’s voice was louder when he spoke again. “You didn’t make me up. I – I didn’t _want_ you to forget. I never tried it, but I left and not the rest. I think…it hurts your head.”

Softer than a mouse. “What _are_ you…”

Just as soft. “Your friend, not your sister. You…called. I like it here. You make everyone happy.”

She looked down at the canvas arms around her middle, watched his bony fingers worry at a patched hole in the elbow. She _heard_ herself, but she couldn’t believe the words that left her mouth. She still wasn’t certain he was real. Everything was madness.

“Alright, Cole…You can stay. Just promise not to throw more cash away. And don't throw out my silverware, goddamit!”

He sounded pleased, agreeable. “Thank you... What does it mean?”

Sara rescued Honest Abe from lemon seeds and toothpicks, flapped him in the air in front of both of them. “This is _money._ It’s valuable, you can’t just throw it out.”

Skeptical. “What does it do?”

“It pays for things.”

“Like what?”

“Like…well, like dinner.”

Now he sounded perplexed and determined. His arms left her as he sat back on his haunches right behind her. She looked over her shoulder, and she watched him talk. “But that’s not – we didn’t _use_ that. They were…hungry. We brought food, they weren’t, and they were happy.” Cole pointed at the money in her hand. “Then they were unhappy again, because of _this,_ and so they _left_ it here. So I put it with the lemon peels that no one wants. Why isn't that right?”

Sara sized him up. How _comical_ he was, convicted and so serious, immediately disdainful of the money in her hand. Suddenly, she didn’t _care_ if he was real or not. It was nice to have a friend.

“It made them unhappy because they didn’t _want_ to leave it here.”

His eyebrows bunched, he tucked a doubtful chin. His eyes insisted on an explanation, as a child’s will do.

Sara laughed. She started to explain, but didn’t make it far.

“No one _wants_ to spend their money, Cole! H-…Hang on a minute. You’re telling me you don’t pay rent? Buy groceries? What, did you just _find_ these clothes? Where are you _from,_ freakin’ Botswana?”

His eyes went owly. “What’s Botswana?”

She lost herself to further laughter, bewildered once again and helpless in the face of her own madness. “I-… _hahaha!_ – I don’t know! It’s some country, I don’t know! Just-…Just help me dig these papers out of the trash, okay? And don’t throw them away again?”

He lit up when she asked for help, of course, and dig away they did. That evening Sara sat and looked at profits. Cole’s naiveté had cost her a small fortune. She leaned back in her chair, looked out her office door, watched her new friend intently slicing endless buckets full of lemons…and all at once, her gentle heart forgave him.

When Monday rolled around, Sara told the doctor’s nurse that she was doing fine.

* * *

 

Training her new friend to handle cash was…well, impossible. In the end, Sara made a rule: No one leaves ‘til Sara puts the black thing on their table, and she takes it, and she gives it back again.

With that out of the way, the pair got on just fine. In fact, Cole was one of – no, the _best_ – server Sara ever had. He knew what people wanted before they knew it for themselves, and he was a royal sweet-talker when it came to desserts. He was friendly, he was honest, he was fast. She was thankful for him every day. Thanks to Cole, Sara was always happy when she was at work.

The days turned into weeks, and Sara gave up wondering just _what_ he was. Conveniently, her mind blocked out the disappearing acts from early on, the lemonade mind-reading trick, the uncanny cluelessness. Cole had what he wanted: To Sara, he was Cole. Just Cole.

In no time at all, her few regulars who stayed in town year ‘round could call for Cole by name. His outfit never changed, but Cole didn’t stink, and well, this _was_ a college town. They had all seen stranger things.

Tipping was an issue. Cole wanted nothing to do with money, didn’t like to _touch_ it. If he caught people leaving money on the table, he would chase them to the street and give it back. Cole promised Sara he would knock it off, but she _knew_ he still did it when she wasn’t looking. It showed up on Google Reviews twice; it weirded people out.

Still, his tips _were_ his. (He did quite well, in fact. People found him charming.) Sara kept Cole’s money in a beat up plastic jar beneath her desk, assuming he’d find need for it someday.

He got on famously with the kitchen staff, although he couldn’t understand a word they said. One day after the lunch rush, Sara walked into the back to find Cole juggling coffee cups with Marco and the boys egging him on. When they started teaching him to yell his orders out in Spanish, she smiled so hard it hurt her cheeks.

Every morning, Cole came through the front door with a smile on his face and said hello. Every evening, when things were slowing down and Sara settled in her closet-sized office to balance out the books, Cole would sneak a glass of lemonade onto the corner of her desk without her ever seeing him. He always rolled the silver, and he always searched her out to say goodnight before he left.

She had no idea where he went when they were closed. Not once did Sara see his face outside of work. No matter – his private life was his, and hers was hers. She was his _employer_ , after all.

 _Speaking_ of the books – Sara kept Cole off of them. She tried, one day, to sit him down and get his information on a W-4. A social security number? A driver’s license? An _address?_ He recoiled from the paper like a snake, eyes pleading without words. She gave his hand a pat and threw the thing away. He hugged her tight and whispered thanks. They never spoke of it again.

After that, they went weeks without an awkward interaction.

But _oh,_ the awkward came.

He’d been working at Nostima for over a month. One day, a little girl spilled milk all over Cole’s coat. On Marco’s strict instruction, Cole took it off and rinsed it in the sink. That done, he hung it with the pots and pans to dry.

Sara’d never _seen_ him take it off.

Beneath, his sleeves were short. She saw his arms, his wrists. He was slender, yes, and pale, but fit and well-defined and _masculine._ His faded shirt was just a tad too short – when he braced the heels of his palms against the counter and leaned down beneath the heat lamps to call his order out to Marco in the back, Sara caught the faintest glimpse of downy hair in the shadows just above his belt. She only ogled for a second, but _Jesus **Christ.**_ The way his jeans rode low across his hips, the way his pockets tightened on his backside when he leaned.

He was _fucking_ **gorgeous.**

Instantly, she loathed herself. _For fuck’s sake, you’re his **boss.** He doesn’t even understand what **money** is._

Her tongue stuck to the palate of her mouth, she tore her eyes away. She fussed furiously at the feta on the salads she was building while her frizzy hair fell down around her blushing face. Her mind raced desperately, grasping out at nothing, trying to think of _anything_ but… ** _that_.**

She could feel Cole right beside her, _staring_ at her as he waited for his ramekin of tzatziki. She felt him start to stoop, as if he meant to look beneath her hair and find her face. He sounded positively mystified.

“Sara…?”

**_CLANK!_ **

Marco's fast tzatziki saved her life.

 


	5. Orange Juice

For Sunday brunch, Café Nostima was only open from eleven in the morning to three in the afternoon. On Mondays, they were closed.

Nostima’s new routine included Sara sleeping in on Sundays. Marco and the boys came early for the morning prep, they’d let Cole in through the back to squeeze the OJ. (Boy, were they happy to see _him._ No one liked to make the OJ. Before Cole came around, it was a full-blown "draw straws" situation.) 

Sara sidled down the sunny sidewalk at a meager fifteen-‘til, dressed in the standard non-skid shoes and khaki pedal pushers that she wore to work. Sara owned ten identical pairs of those high-waisted pants meant for a soccer mom. They got the job done.

She could hear Marco’s old Tejano mix tape from the street. A woman passed by in the opposite direction, smirking to herself. Sara fancied she was tickled at the off-key Spanish harmonizing from her bawdy band of men. She wasn’t certain of the impact on her “Greek” café’s reputation, but be damned if Sara _dared_ deny the boys their morning noise. If they didn't get their play time, her kitchen guys were _total_ divas.

The bay windows were open, and the inside of Nostima was pristine - Thanks, Cole. The stereo was in the kitchen, so Sara couldn’t see her upstart staff from way up front. Her jangling keys came fumbling for the lock. One song ended, and another song began. When Sara heard Cole’s trilling grito he’d been working on for weeks, she grinned so hard it stung beneath her ears.

**_“Aiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeee-YA-haaaaa!”_ **

_Oh. My. **God.**_

The cheering bravos were so _loud,_ you’d think she had an army in her kitchen. In unison, they started belting lyrics to _Vestida de Color de Rosa._ From the beginning again? They had the song on _loop!_ Sara leaned her weight against the still-locked door and choked with snorting laughter.

Whatever he had been _before,_ thanks to Marco and the others Cole was now officially a Mexican.

* * *

 

All the time, Sara’d think how working brunch was much like waxing her upper lip – dreaded, harsh and quick and not- _so_ -bad when looking back. Another day was done.

The books already balanced for the week, Sara was set up at Table 3 with silverware and napkins. Cole loved to roll with her on Sunday afternoons. They’d watch the cars go by, they’d talk, she’d drink the glass of pulpless orange juice he strained for her.

The line between employer and employee was one Sara’d never walked too well. She wasn’t the most talkative of people. When she _did_ speak, she only had one face. Be the conversation with a customer or strangers in the street, Sara couldn’t help but be herself. Not _ideal_ for a business owner, but she got by.

Until she started crushing on the only telepathic member of her staff.

Their talks were always fun, or meaningful – he’d ask about her thoughts, her life, the potted flowers out in front. As for Cole, he _loved_ to talk about the present and the recent past. His customers, their fears and deep desires. Things Marco showed him on his phone, telenovela reruns from the kitchen’s portable TV.

Question him on anything about his former life? He acted deaf. No, really. Nothing, nada, zilch. _What kind of car was that, Sara? You don't have one? Marco has a mermaid truck to match his boat._

Sara didn’t mind. She found she _loved_ to hear Cole talk about the trials of Rosalinda and Fernando. She loved to hear him talking about _anything._ His words were round and soft like clouds.

“But… Don't you die when cars hit you? Her mother never even _met_ him.”

It happened weekly now: She’d listen to him talk. She’d start floating on the rhythm of his tongue, she’d chew her lip and smirk with glasses sliding down her nose. She’d catch herself, she’d scrunch her face, she’d scowl down at the silverware and start whipping through the rolling motions like an angry robot.

 _Newwwwp, newp. We don’t **do** crushes, remember? What are you, twelve? What d’you think you’re going to do, take him home and -…freakin’… **what?**_ _Screw him on your broken futon? You think **he** wants that? Why, because he makes you fucking juice and feels bad that your daddy was a liar? _

_Give me a break, Sara. Get **over** it._

It went pretty much exactly like that, _every_ time. Like Frank Herbert’s _Litany Against Fear,_ except with more…self-loathing.

She’d finish her recital, she’d glance up over chipped-paint metal frames. There he’d sit, tilting his head and eyeing Sara like a _very_ baffled owl. Cole’s eyes could be so… _fierce._ Could owls have blue eyes?

_Newwwp. Shut **up.** He’s listening again._

Two beats. His lips would part, a breath to speak – her chair would interrupt him without fail, scraping ‘cross the floor as Sara stood and tromped away to _“use the uh, the bathroom.”_

“…For what?”

(Sara’s clear across the restaurant by now. Hear the shutting door?) “Yeahnoyoucan’taskmethatkthanksthough.”

It went like that every Sunday. Twice a week, sometimes, but _always_ Sunday.

Not today. _Today,_ Señor Gringo-Grito was too popular in back. He spent more and more time in the kitchen lately. Cole was such a sucker, and Marco was a _massive_ ham.

_Jesus. Are you **jealous?**_

_…Fucking… … … ***SIGH*.**_

**_Yes._ **

Cole always did his portion of the closing tasks. Sara glanced up – his last two tables weren’t bussed. Where was the bus boy at? Those silverware still needed washed and rolled. Speaking of, she’d finished her half of the stack ten minutes ago. She was nearly half way done with Cole’s. The sugar caddies were a sloppy, nearly-empty mess. _His_ job.

The kitchen sounded _awfully_ quiet.

Sara’s chair sang as she threw her last roll down and stood.

* * *

 

All five of them were huddled in a circle behind the counter, looking down at something Marco held. A video – Sara saw the reflection in Marco’s glasses. Four of them wore wickedly delighted faces, like young boys gloating over something stolen. She heard them clicking tongues and whispering, things like _‘taaa-tatatata.’_

Cole was quiet. His forehead furrowed _just_ a little as he watched. Something happened, and his eyebrows snapped up high. He jerked his head back, shook it, and quickly leaned back in to look again, just like a fascinated dog who’s had his nose pinched by a crawdad. One of the line cooks laughed and slapped his shoulder.

The volume was down low, but Sara _clearly_ heard a woman’s high-pitched wails of artificial pleasure.

They were watching porn.

 _Marco’s_ porn. Sara didn’t want to know how _filthy..._

Cole sounded curious and wholly unembarrassed. “Sí means… yes. She likes it?”

“Oooh, sí. She like it. _Look_ at her.”

Cole blinked, just once. He peered closer, and the others started laughing. Sara heard it all - a muffled slapping noise, a scream, a gutteral ‘ _¿Te gusta eso, puta?’_

Sara was their _boss._ She could have fired them for sexual harassment, screamed and made a scene, scolded them for slacking off.

None of the above. She sneered disgust, her stomach lurched, and she was fucking **_out_** _of there._

* * *

Sara heard Cole call her name before the two-way kitchen door clacked shut behind her. She stormed into her office, slammed the door – and he was there, _right_ there, standing in the space between her body and her chair. She jumped back against her door and shrieked in shock. He hadn’t done - … _that,_ whatever it was called, just suddenly fucking _being_ there, since the day they dropped the lemons on the stairs. She’d convinced herself three weeks ago that it was her imagination.

Nope.

“Jesus _fuck_ Cole, how did you – “

His face was tortured. Bright blue eyes filled with sorrow snagged her own. He chanted quick and breathy-round from too-dry lips.

_“Where are you? …Burns in shapes too smooth, makes minds and shoes go backwards against everything there is. My eyes, my, don’t…look at her. Don’t look at her.”_

He started to reach out for Sara’s shoulders as he spoke, but – something. Some reason. He flinched and stopped himself, fretting fingers flexing in the air between them. He whispered, desperate.

_“Your real is yours, not hers. I… won’t look at her again.”_

_Cole…_

Sara was disgusted at herself for feeling jealous. Cole had never heard of porn, he’d never heard of _sex,_ he was _not_ her boyfriend and this was _not_ her business and – guys watch porn, shit, _she_ liked porn, just not –

_“Sara…?”_

It hurt to hear his voice. It hurt to look at him. 

_He doesn't know what sex is. He doesn't even **know.** You check his ass out when he bends to pick things up off of the floor, and he...You suck. You fucking suck._

_He’s standing here, just – Grow **up.** You’re his boss. **Handle it.**_

It was impossible to mildly avoid eye contact with Cole in that tiny space, so Sara _forced_ it, jerking her chin and glaring at the wall off to her left. She spoke through clenching teeth, trying to convince herself she sounded like a grown-ass woman and a boss _should_ sound.

(Bosses weren’t supposed to cuss so much, though. And for the record, Sara sounded more like a wounded teenage girlfriend than a grown-ass woman.)

“It’s not my _business_ what you do, just…watch that shit at home. Finish your fucking closing tasks so I can check them off. It’s almost five o’clock.”

She pulled the door in towards them, stepped left with it to let him leave, kept her eyes glued to the wall.  

His response was unexpected.

Without touching her, he placed his hand upon the high-edge of the door and eased it shut behind her once again. Not aggressive at all, just _strong –_ her grasp upon the doorknob was an afterthought.

He pulled her into the hug a quiet corner of her heart had longed for all day long. Even as he held her, she ached with the understanding that Cole's embrace was only _friendship._

That was all he knew.

His chest was warm against her cheek, and she could feel the peeling graphics on his shirt. The nosepiece of her glasses pressed her face. Cole smelled like his day – namely, orange juice and sanitizer from the kitchen – but he had no scent of his own.

Sara was too wrapped up in self-loathing – and misery, and jealousy, and guilt, and _it’s not **fair,** _ and _I can’t **even** _ – to hug Cole back. He spoke into her hair, that same soft voice with words that rolled like marbles over silk.

 _“It hurt, then nothing, dead, now-…him, something, and it hurts again. Stop. I won’t, I can’t, I have to. Can’t be the me you see, the me that never was._ It’s-… hard to hear it, when it’s… me. I want to help, not make it worse. I could…”

Cole went ten long beats without a breath.

_“I could make you forget.”_

Her breath stopped at the thought, as his had done.

_He can **do** that? _

_…Of course he can._

She gave up playing boss lady - alone with him, she always did. In spite of everything feeling so terrible, Sara hoarsely croaked –

“The hell you will. You're the only friend I've got.”

He may not have understood her phrasing, but her mind was clear enough. In unison, they smiled.

* * *

They did the sugar caddies as a team. Cole hummed _Vestida de Color de Rosa_ as he shook each caddy upside down in his cupped hand to set the packets straight. 

Sara didn't care that it was quarter after five on Sunday - she could listen to him hum all day.

Out of nowhere: "Sara? What does it mean?"

_Someone seriously let their kid put ketchup in the salt shaker...? Augh, the pepper too? Get herpes. Asshole._

"Huh? What does what mean?"

"Vestid- "

 _Oh, that._ "Dressed in pink, the color of the rose."

They smiled across the restaurant at each other - she liked to "read his mind" and cut him off, and he seemed to enjoy the role reversal. He took to elbows as he leaned across the biggest table in the place, fishing for the wayward caddy with his fingertip, eyes never leaving her.

"What's the rest? Marco can't say."

She'd heard the song a hundred million thousand billion times. She could see his tiptoes underneath the table as he reached.

"Tejano stuff's pretty simple and repetitive, it's -..." She pondered, just a second. Her brown eyes left him for some task, lest she start blushing as she recited the love song for him. "Dressed in pink, the color of the rose. Your face blushing with love, your subtle charms, pretty as a butterfly..."

She glanced long-ways and found Cole standing still, looking at her, enraptured. All of a sudden, Sara felt incredibly embarrassed. Gneehhh, feelings, romance, love songs.

"A butterfly....beside a lake? Above it, maybe? Blah blah, sex in the hay, blah blah, I love you like crazy and you're really pretty, Aiee-yaa-haaa!"

Apparently, her grito didn't satisfy. Cole took a sharp breath, crying out so loud and unexpected Sara's startled heart went GRUKKK. 

_“Aiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeee **-YA-** haaaaa!”_

Her good-for-nothing kitchen echoed his salute. Cole and Sara laughed so hard together, she snorted twice and nearly peed her pants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the method-readers who just can't resist hearing the song Cole and his new friends boogie to all morning in the kitchen!: [_Vestida de Color de Rosa_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C08WKatJofI)


	6. Dos Equis

_Side effects may include: blah blah blah, **insomnia,** blah blah._

Sara wasn’t _getting used to it_ , as Dr. Lazarus assured.

Her sleep was getting worse.

Used to be, she’d lay alone in bed all afternoon and point her melancholy eyes up at the empty ceiling of her empty life. Then sis checked out, and Sara didn’t have the heart to sell her restaurant.

Restaurant owners hardly have the _time_ to lay around and sulk. That is, _unless_ the meds they take to “cope” with running a café give them insomnia. Six extra hours of Old Maid moping, and for _free!_

That Saturday had been the worst night yet. Sara spent the wee hours wide-awake unwilling. She was half annoyed, half…silent. Not content, but _silent._ Her mind was a white canvas, a blank and spectral plane of endless nothing. She could _feel_ it, and she wondered: _If you take away the worry, is this silence all that’s left of me? Am I really this boring?_

_Yeah...it's no wonder I'm alone._

There was a time when thoughts like this made Sara feel morose. These days, it just felt true.

* * *

Exhaustion finally wrestled Sara into slumber as the sun began to rise. The alarm she never set? It failed to wake her up. (Stupid, good-for-nothing phone.)

She _did_ finally wake, well after brunch was done. Her ears came first, stirred to semi-conscious by a baseline of Reggaeton from the street. It didn’t fade with passing by – it stayed. This would have vexed a less Olympic sleeper.

 _Nice try, ñero._ _I’ve lived in this neighborhood for years._

Sara didn’t come awake enough to recognize she’d overslept. Her seasoned ears ignored the thudding rhythm and the laughter down below as Sara quickly drifted back to sleep. She burrowed deeper in her pillow, sprawled face-down on her lumpy futon like the victim of a twenty story fall. The stripes of sunshine glaring through her half-shut plastic blinds did _nothing_ to persuade her.

She was deaf to the telltale _creak_ of someone hand-vaulting the tailgate of a truck, the _pong-pong-pong_ of hurried footfalls up her building’s wrought iron steps, the squeaky open-shut of the exterior door that led to Sara’s landing.

No knock. No steps picked through the clutter on her floor. Once his waiting friends were out of sight, Cole had no need for doors and walking.

The phantom took to knees in Sara’s fluffy heaven, dirty sneaker-tops against her likewise dirty wooden floor. (She kept her futon on the floor these days – the metal frame was bowed.) Cole's eyes went darting up and down the snoozing length of her, half worried, half intrigued. She made a little noise of protest when Cole’s timid hand came pressing at the middle of her back. He leaned down close, whispering in the chaos of her mousy hair.

_“Sara…? Are you asleep?”_

His rolling voice washed Sara’s inner consciousness with soothing colors. She cracked a smile against her pillow, stretch-yawned like a lazy cat, trilled with the softest flirty little giggle. And then –

_The-wha, the-what-now?_

Sara sputtered as she jolted awake. She braced her hands against her futon and shoved herself half-upright, shooting Cole a wild-eyed stare through the rat’s nest of her hair. His quick reflexes spared their heads collision – it was a near thing.

Her face was pink with lines. Her oversized old t-shirt was a baggy, wrinkled mess. Her pitch was high with nerves and desperation.

“What time is it?!”

Cole smiled into her eyes and cooed to her as though she were a kitten hiding underneath a car. He gave Sara’s arching back a slow rub through her blankets. As he spoke, she lost herself in icy blue. _“Promise-killer, always sleeping, ruins like a fire.”_

The softest chuckle. “No. The juice was fine. Angel did the money, helped with silver. You’re…different when you sleep. It’s – ”

A car horn so obnoxious it could only come from Marco and his _freaking_ mermaid truck. She could see that eyesore without looking through the blinds – the airbrush art, the running lights, the rims. Marco kept the tacky car shop at the local flea in business.

Impatient hollering two stories down. Whatever Cole was going to say, he lost the thought. Instead, he laughed and beamed: “Hurry, Sara! We’re going to the lake!”

* * *

The guys had asked her to come out with them on Sunday afternoons before. Anti-social as she was outside the restaurant, Sara _never_ told them yes.

But _Cole?_ Sara couldn’t say yes fast enough. That was then, alone with him and snuggled in her dark and cozy bed.

Now Sara was huddled on her side along the inner wall of Marco’s truck bed, speeding down the highway in the blazing sun. (Angel offered to give up his seat, but Sara was _not_ interested in the claustrophobic cab crammed full of Mexicans.)

Cole was on his back a mere arm’s length away, his hands behind his head. He squinted as he watched the sky rush past, ankles crossed, feet propped on a sticky-looking cooler of tamales and Dos Equis. They tried to talk at first – too loud.

As she watched his champagne hair dance in the wind, Sara kicked herself for coming on this trip.

Without the restaurant’s endless chores to keep her busy, there was too much time to look at him. Her tummy fluttered with the memory of the gentle way he woke her, how it felt to have him whispering close. She’d been so thrilled to see his face, his creepy break-in didn’t bother her _at all._

_He came to get me…_

_…because he’s my friend._

Her heart sank with the painful truth that _always_ whipped her hungry thoughts with shame. Sara wished she could just be grateful for Cole's friendship and get _over_ it, go back to thinking _'_ _Nah, love's not for me'_  the way she’d done for years.

She’d been trying to for months. She really, _really_ couldn’t.

She stopped watching him at some point in her wallowing and started messing with her necklace. Costume, extra-long, a hammered metal square with dainty lengths of chain for tassels. She drew her knees up as she fussed at fixing a half-open O-ring on one corner of the pendant, trying (and failing) to forget about the handsome manboy basking in the sunshine feet away.

Close as he was, Cole still had to shout.

_“Did I do something wrong?”_

She snapped out of her mopey reverie to find Cole staring, owl-eyed and worried, like he _always_ did when Sara longed to love him. Through months of endless repetition, she’d come to understand that any thoughts _involving_ Cole short-circuited the inner workings of his gift. He could sense he was involved, but that was it.

Sara was addicted to a fantasy. Cole would hear her thoughts, show up out of nowhere, slip his arms around her from behind. In the kitchen after closing maybe, or the walk-in fridge. He’d purr into her ear, _“Me too.”_ Maybe something cryptic about snails or rocks or rivers. He’d kiss her on the neck, turn her around, tuck his chin to look at her and smile...

Cole’s self-blindness was the icing on her curse. Those dreams were filled with buckshot every time he eyed her like a math problem from hell. Like he was doing now.

_He wouldn’t want me, anyway. He'd freak out, be confused...probably erase himself and leave._

Sara looked away. She muttered her response down at her necklace. “M’car sick.”

(Still shouting.) _“What?”_

_“I’M. JUST. CAR. SICK.”_

_“Cars can get sick!? I thought you didn’t have one! Should we go back for her?"_

Sara shut her eyes and sighed.

_“…Sara?”_

* * *

Marco’s motorboat was purchased second-hand, christened _Empty Pockets_ by the former owner _._ Cole was right - the topless mermaids on the side _did_ match his truck.

_The legacy of Marco’s Christmas bonus. Naked mermaids._

“Marco…What’s the weight capacity on this thing?”

A snorting laugh, the wave of a dismissive hand.

Her chattering companions crammed in like sardines. Sara sat in the very back against a sidewall, watching Marco prep the boat while Angel secured fishing poles in brackets. She went to rest her elbow on the wall to buy some room, but _shit,_ the sun-baked boat was _hot._ She already felt a sunburn coming on.

Cole was last to come aboard, lifting Marco’s heavy cooler by himself. When Angel rushed to help him, Cole just laughed and said, _it’s fine._ Sara pressed her knees together when the cooler came a’thudding to the ground beside her feet.

Cole and Angel then came tumbling onto the already crowded bench. Cole squeezed his slender hips _right_ next to hers, planting his feet on either side of the cooler. The quarters were so cramped, Cole and Sara touched from calf to shoulder. All the while, Angel educated Cole about the merits of Dos Equis. Cole was excited to announce: he _had_ seen the commercials.

“But why do nuts make him feel thirsty?”

Sara cut in on the conversation when Angel got confused. “They’re salty. Some bars use pretzels. Makes you buy more beer. He’s telling you it’s a trick.”

“Ah...Trick nuts!" Then darkly, "That isn't very nice.”

Cole and Angel’s talk resumed.

Cole smelled like the highway – so did she. She glanced up and watched his jawline while he spoke, she looked out at the lake. Squished tight together as they were, Sara was beyond relieved that Cole was so distracted. She _hated_ when he picked at her about her heart in front of everyone, and it was pounding like a fist inside her chest.

Cole and Angel started passing beers around when Marco’s boat began to move. Sara watched the bottles make their rounds – cold and slick with sweat, foiled labels glinting in the sun. _God,_ she wanted one. But Sara was a lightweight, and this sunshine, and he’s so... _close…_

Cole opened one – he learned from watching Angel. He reached across his body to offer it to Sara. When she glanced down and didn’t take it, he nudged the bottle towards her hand and chimed: “This one’s for you!”

“No thanks, Cole. You keep it.”

Puzzled. “…But you want it.”

Sara bit her lip and glanced down at the bottle in his hand. “I-…yeah, I do, I love Dos Equis. But I shouldn’t.”

_“Spilling vapor whispers like a ghost. Tastes like gravel parking lots and Anna’s garden, makes me laugh too much. He won’t –…”_

Cole’s eyebrows knit. He sounded frustrated. “I can’t see it all, but…You _do_ want it. You’re thirsty, like the nuts on channel 6. Please take it.”

 _God,_ those pale blue eyes. She couldn’t tell him no. She smiled at him and took it with a silent prayer: _Please God, don't let me get sundrunk and try to kiss him._

It was _delicious._

As she drank, Sara caught Cole staring from the corner of her eye. He was watching rapt, his face intense with satisfaction. It made her feel bashful. When she broke the popping seal between her lips and glass, she pressed the sweaty bottle to her forehead and said thank you. Cole just smiled. When Angel nudged Cole’s shoulder with another beer, he tore his eyes away.

Cole held his beer all afternoon, told Angel it was wonderful. Only Sara noticed that he didn’t drink a drop. He brought it with him when he jumped into the lake.

* * *

_“Why didn’t you **tell me** you can’t swim?! **You could have fucking drowned!”**_

Cole spit and sputtered, laughing like a lunatic as he bobbed in the murky water. His fingers clutched at _Empty Pockets’_ bottom rung. Sara was white as a sheet beside him, and she was _not_ amused. Marco and the gang seemed to think it was all _hilarious._

“Sara! Did you see him?!”

Flustered. That drowned rat look going on. _“WHO!?”_

Ecstatic. “The fish! I saw a fish! He was – he was lake-colored! I thought all fish were pink?!”

_Sigh._


	7. Butter Lettuce

The long ride home dried everything, except Cole’s socks and shoes. When Sara clamored over Marco’s tacky tailgate and thudded to the sidewalk just outside her home, she couldn’t help but notice that her shorts were stiff. She looked down – even in the twilight, she could see her strappy blouse was tinted brown. She could feel the grime beneath her clothes. She couldn’t _wait_ to take a shower.

Sara looked back up and waved as Marco drove away. Her eyes lingered on the truck to see which way he’d turn at Henniworth and Plank.

Left. Sara gnawed her bottom lip like some dolled-up twenty-something hipster crushing in a Starbucks.

_What if Cole lives just around the corner?_

Merrily, “I don’t.”

_“Eep!”_

Cole was standing catty-corner just behind her. Sara took a shaky breath, recovering from the shock. She turned her chin to glower at him over her suncrisped shoulder. He was busy miming her, watching Marco disappear like it was just the thing to do. His hand was still up in the air – he’d been waving, too.

Grumpily. “You heard _that_ well enough.”

His mystic eyes came down to meet her. “Heard what?”

Sara didn’t answer.

Honestly, even with the cramped arrangements and the unexpected swim, she had a lovely time today. But she was tired. She was sunburned. She was hungry. She was filthy. She was _crabby._

Cole was none of the above, save filthy. He was smiling a shy little smile, and he was…holding lettuce? Two heads of Boston bibb to be exact, the kind that comes in plastic boxes with the roots attached. He was cradling his cargo in one arm. Sara spied two little orange price tags from Fiesta Mart.

Instantly intrigued, Sara set her petty woes aside. She laughed, brief and light and airy, and she turned around to face him with a sneaky smile she hadn’t used since high school. She tapped one box of lettuce, and the noisy plastic crinkled. She peered into his bashful face, her voice soft with secrets.

She sounded flirty. Sara _never_ sounded flirty.

“Did you…did you _steal_ this? Just now?”

Cole’s platinum lashes batted as he turned his face away. Her face followed his, persistent. A memory flashed: some hiccups in Nostima’s salad-making inventory. As soon as she complained out loud to no one in the fridge one Friday afternoon, the numbers started adding up again. Sara’s eyebrows shot up high, she laughed with disbelief and teased: “ _Cole!_ Have you been stealing vegetables from _me?”_

Cole cringed as though she struck him, and he disappeared. Sara staggered backwards.

“Cole…?”

No answer when she meekly called his name.

Her heart panged, and the playful smile melted from her face. She looked down at the sidewalk where he’d been just beats before, saw the darkened outlines where his soggy feet belonged. As she sighed down at his footprints, her eyes began to blur.

_What, we’re **crying** now? I must have heatstroke. Jesus Christ, grow **up.**_

Sara tilted back her head to stop the flow of tears, blinking hard up at the powerlines. She pretended not to hear the flimsy plastic crinkling right in front of her. Her heart mewled: _He came back. He never just…comes back._

“Sara…”

She shut her eyes, she sniffed back snot, she cleared her throat. Her dirty hair was spilling down her back, face still upturned towards the sky. The sun went down enough for streetlamps to come flickering on – light refracted from the dirty lenses on her face. She heard the tinny echo of a lone basketballer somewhere down the block.

Her response was gentle, hoarse with bridled tears. “Someone’s going to catch you if you disappear like that in public.”

Quietly. “They don’t remember me like you. I’m… I’m sorry. You don't like it.”

Sara sensed his hand approaching with intent to wipe her cheek. She turned away from him before he had the chance, masking her embarrassment with nonchalance. She snatched her glasses from her face and fussed at polishing her lenses with her dirty shirt, meandering towards the bottom of her staircase.

“I-it’s really no big deal! I’m not _mad_ or anything. Ha-ha, I mean, it’s not like a couple heads of lettuce breaks the bank. I just – ” Sara lowered her voice as she re-donned her glasses, now smeared instead of splotchy. “ _Ahem-hem_ …Well. I kind of thought you didn’t eat.”

He was so timid and breathy, she could hardly hear him. “Not me. They mow the clovers.”

“…Oh. Okay.” _Whatever that means._

Sara turned to look at him with one foot on the stairs, one hand resting on the curly cast iron railing. He kept his place, and silence intervened. Sara wondered how to say goodnight, wondered why Cole got out _here_ if he lived so far away.

 _Crinkle-crackle_ went the boxes as Cole shifted on his feet. He took a breath and started twice before he found the nerve to speak.

 “…Will you go with me?”

* * *

 

_How far are we **going…?**_

Sara’s sandals clacked with every step. She heard Lake Raven squelching in Cole’s shoes.

“…How are your feet not miserable?”

His chuckle tied her tummy up in knots. “They’re _feet.”_

She boggled at his side.

* * *

 

Sara felt like she was dreaming.

The earth was piping hot, the evening breeze was cool. Echo Park ran east along some nameless tributary of the San Jacinto River, a muddy trickle in a weed-cracked canyon made of concrete. There wasn’t much to see – the grass was cut too short, the benches were grafittied. Rats the size of footballs haunted every smelly trash can on the block.

They were in the darkest corner of the park, and they were all alone. Cole was crouching near a massive ornamental shrub, hands busy planting pilfered hydroponic lettuce. Sara stood and watched him for a moment, mesmerized. Before she knew it, she was on her knees beside him with her fingers in the dirt. There were bottle caps and little bits of garbage, maybe shards of glass – she didn’t care.

Cole glanced up at Sara through his stringy bangs, their foreheads almost touching. She watched his lips move in the nearly-dark. Nighttime made his spilling verse enchanting.

_“Makes their blood sing, holds the pieces, feels more real. They dance.”_

Sara nodded with a nod that said, _Hmm- **hmm.** Yes-yes, of course. Anything you say._

Cole gave the soil a sturdy shove around the roots to plant them snug. She watched him wipe his slender fingers in the grass, she mimicked in a trance. When he stood, she followed like his shadow. The smile he gave her was electric.

_“Hide.”_

Cole snatched up Sara’s hand and rushed her to the nearest bench. He guided her to kneel in the seat and peer between the backslats, he huddled close to do the same. The sunbaked metal mesh they knelt on branded diamond gridmarks on her knees and shins. Sara did _not_ care.

The sudden rush, the secrecy, the dirt beneath their nails – Sara’s heart raced with excitement, and she grinned from ear to ear. When the ghost beside her held his breath, she did the same.

And then the rabbits came.

Mother Cottontail came first, both quick of eye and brave. Sara watched her silver whiskers twitching in the moonlight. The rabbit yanked Cole’s lettuce with her teeth, and Sara heard it give – a satisfying _rip_ like tearing pulpy paper.

Movement in the bramble shadows, then. Cole gave Sara a nudge and whispered, _“Look.”_

Momma’s creeping baby bunnies were the size of baseballs. Sara brought her hand over her mouth, so overcome with love she nearly cried. She was so enraptured by the scene, she never felt Cole’s gentle eyes transfixed upon her face.

Time ceased to be. They crouched together in the dark until the feast was done. Sara choked on giddy wonder when she saw the timid babies start to chase each other, hopping in the air like furry popcorn – they were dancing, just as Cole had said.

Not once that night did Sara think: _This is stupid. They’re just pests._

* * *

Sara woke on Monday morning in a daze. She stretched and purred, she smiled for no good reason.

Then she heard a pan _clank_ in her kitchen. Her eyes went wide, her heart stopped on a dime. She lay there, and she listened.

Her fridge door rattled as it open-closed. Something rapped upon the counter top – an egg? Sara heard a pleading whisper, _nonono **no!**_ Next came a drawn out pause, the tersest little sigh. 

_**That.** Is freaking  **Cole.**_

The ripping perforations of a paper towel. The trash can lid. A cracking egg again.

“…Cole?”

He muttered, but she heard him. She’d never heard Cole sound so _frustrated._ “They don’t _listen._ Marco only needs one hand.”

Sara shoved her glasses on her face. She took to hands and knees, crawling out from underneath her nest of blankets in her standard baggy tee and panties. Her apartment was a matchbox – three passes of her palms, and she was peering ‘round the doorframe of the kitchen.

Cole was waging war on eggs, half-melted old spatula in hand. He was wearing Sara’s unisex pajama bottoms snug and low across his hips. _Nothing_ else. She froze with her lips barely parted, her breathing stopped. Helplessly, she took him in through morning’s standard curtain-mess of freshly shampooed hair.

His skin was white as china. The sun was creeping through the window of her kitchen, and it made his armhair shine. Cole reached up to scratch behind his head, glaring down at the pan. She glimpsed the wiry hair beneath his arm, the same that trailed down the center of his sculpted stomach. It was slightly darker than the silky hair upon his head. His head – he’d had a bath. His hair looked fluffy-soft and clean, paler than she’d ever seen it.

Distracted as Cole was, _no one_ gawks that long and gets away with it. He turned to face her, brandishing her spatula aloft as though it were a weapon. He said, convicted: “Show me once.”

Sara didn’t hear a word. She was far too busy staring at the tattoo on his heart: a star-eyed rabbit curled up like the moon.


	8. Assertion: Lines make sine waves as they die.

_Cole stood half-dressed and waiting, looking down on her with spatula in hand. Sara lingered on all fours, cheek squished against the doorless doorjamb of the kitchen. Her memory flailed for traction like a Lincoln stuck in mud._

_This scene felt so…familiar._

* * *

Before. The lake. The cottontails of Echo Park. Cole took her absent hand to guide her home without disturbing Sara’s blissful trance. They hardly spoke. They wandered through the muggy dark like dreamers, stopping under every streetlamp to admire the swarms of winged apostles mad with longing for the artificial light.

Beneath one such light, as the glowing pair stood side-by-side with meshing hands and squinting eyes and upturned faces, Cole began to speak.

 _“Night’s angels sing with wings of powdered velvet. There was more before, but now the glowing pulls._ …Sara. If they love the light so much, why not live for the morning? Is that why people hate them?”

She hummed in echo of his question, enraptured by his lulling lilt. Too dazed for guilt and shame, Sara’s cheekbone came to nuzzle at the corner of Cole’s shoulder. Brown eyes singled out one mottled miller clinging to the crowded plastic dome with all his might. He wandered to and fro in aimless desperation to be _closer._

Sara shut her stinging eyes - the insides of her eyelids glowed electric blue. She sounded stoned. “I don’t know… …I’m sorry.”

She heard him whisper, “It’s alright. The moths aren't asking.”

Sara’s miller found a crack, he crawled inside. The light he longed to touch would cook her moth alive.  

* * *

It was nearly midnight when the quiet couple made it home. The narrow staircase broke their handhold and her shameless trance; as Sara climbed, embarrassment and guilt ascended with her.

_He held my hand to make me happy. This…this isn’t right. He’s not your fucking **boyfriend,** Sara. As far as he’s concerned, holding hands is like an extra side of ketchup – he’s just doing it because he knows you like it. _

_You know who does that? Kids. Insecure young teenagers, dogs, and **kids. God,** you’re so lonely and pathetic, falling for this guy just because he aims to please. How **selfish** are you?_

Her timid heart-mouse squeaked: _That isn’t why…… It isn’t._

Sara kicked herself up three whole flights of stairs. Cole was being _strangely_ quiet, fidgeting on repeat with his knuckles rubbing back-and-forth against his palm. She was too consumed with self-admonishment to notice.

He followed close behind her ‘til they reached the concrete landing just outside her door. One by one, his footfalls plonked like pebbles in her roiling gut. When Sara reached a certain stair, the motion-activated floodlights buzzed a low electric _huuummmm._

Self-hate was not her only misery. Sara’s feet were sore, and she was starving – Marco’s wife’s tamales rode quite sturdy in the belly, but that was hours and _hours_ ago. Her filthy, aching skin was longing for a shower.

Even still, with _all_ of that, when it came time to say goodbye poor Sara couldn’t stand it. She plodded to her door, she fished her key out of her pocket. Her hand paused in the air beside her lock, eyes acting of-a-sudden interested in the missing nail at the bottom of her apartment’s number 6.

The quiet Cole spoke into had been with them since the moths.

“You’re going to sleep again?”

At first, Sara thought he sounded disappointed. The guilt in her corrected: **_No._** _He’s just confused. Because he doesn’t know how **sleep** works, Sara. Because he’s-…_

_…What **are** you, anyway? Why can’t you just be...normal?! Fuck, I’m so in love with you, and you aren’t even- _

At long last, as she stood there glaring at the number on her door and trying not to break down crying like a helpless woman in a movie she would _never_ deign to watch, Sara paid herself a sorely needed morsel of self-pity.

_This isn’t **fair.**_

And when her aching heart cracked open, he was there.

He seized her in a sudden rush. Quick hands clapped over Sara’s eyes to snatch her blind, palms firm and urgent on her temples. Her heart lurched with surprise, she gasped, she dropped her key. She grabbed his wrists but didn’t pull away.

Cole’s worn-out denim brushed her calves when Sara staggered back against his chest; his right leg was ticcing like a metronome. It was a sweet and blissful hell to lean there, surprised and heavy-hearted with the buckles of his shabby jacket digging at her ribs. Their bodies touched all over like the crowded boat, but it was _nighttime_ now, and they were all alone. Her startled grasp went soft, fingers savoring the warm and pulsing heaven of his forbidden inner wrists.

_Whatever you are, you’re alive._

His quaking voice was raw with panic, his words a jumbled landslide.

“Pieces, pieces, sweet white smiles then angry mirrors of _something,_ breaking _everything!_ Warm colored light, then _nothing._ I help, I hear you happy, you still know me, then you hurt. You _always_ hurt, it’s always dark and muddy. _Me,_ it’s always _me._ _**Don't make me go.**  _I don’t _want_ to hurt you, I – I don’t know how to _stop._ I tried talking, I tried stopping talking, I – I hear you calling, but I can’t – I don’t – I’m _trying,_ it’s…it’s _loud!”_

_I’m hurting him. I have to stop._

From love came super-human self-control. Sara shut her eyes beneath his fingers, savoring his touch for one more half-a-heartbeat. She forced a breath to calm her thoughts, and then she forced two more.

Surprisingly, it…kind of _worked._

She pulled his wrists to guide his hands away. She swallowed back her pain with stern resolve and focused on his needs, the way a frightened mother does when comforting her child. She straightened up, she gave him space, she turned around. She smiled at him.

Cole relaxed before she even started speaking. His leg twitch lessened, but it didn’t stop.

As she watched his pained expression ease into relief, her imagination spent an instant begging for a kiss. His fingers in her hair with that same panicked urgency, no whispered words, just pressing _need._ His tongue plunging hot and fast, devoid of scent and taste. His breath against her face, her back thudding on the door, she’d throw her arms around his waist and grab his belt to yank him closer, his hands –

Sara caught herself. Somehow, she found the will to stop – but not before she saw his eyebrows _barely_ scrunch. Surely, she imagined it.

All of this in just a _fraction_ of a second. _God,_ the way Cole made her seconds turn weeks. She swept the whole mess underneath her doormat with one gruff chuckle and a ”woah-woah-woah” gesture of her outstretched hands.

“Woah, woah, _woah,_ Cole. _**Easy.** _ I’m okay. I’m just a little grouchy ‘cause I’m-…hungry. Hangry? You remember?”

“Hangry. Like the soccer mom.”

Her laugh was real, and it dissolved some unrequited tension. Sara tore her gaze away from him, stooping down to snatch her key up from her doormat. (The reed weave was unraveling.  The _W_ of _WELCOME_ was…implied.)

“You got it. Just need a PB&J or something.”

“P, B, J.”

Sara laughed again, so hard she snorted. As she laughed, she shook her head and braced herself against the door.

“Oh…A _sandwich?_ Made of letters?”

_I love you. Weirdo._

And it was time to end the night. _Click_ went her key, _creak_ went her door. Sara lingered with her hand and eyes upon her doorknob, trying to find the words to say goodbye. (Mr. Mosquito Hawk took full advantage of the situation – in he went, and she was none the wiser.)

“Cole…Thanks. For everything. Oh. Uh, by the way… promise you’ll go home and take a _shower_ tonight?”

“I’m always home. I don’t need them.”

“Ch-hah!”

Ah, the way he cheered her up – from awestruck down to heartbroken, from guarded to flirtatious teasing, so many things she _never_ did until she spoke with _him._ Sara scoffed, she turned around to face him yet _again_. One hand gestured up and down. She couldn’t stop the laughs that spilled like endless gemstones from her mouth.

“The hell you don’t! You smell like a dead catfish!”

Something had him grinning. His unembarrassed eyes followed her wild gestures through the air. “That’s…bad? Goes sour, like the milk? I need to wash my jacket in the sink again?”

Sara’s hand stopped, and her laughter died.

 _“Hang on._ You don’t – …” Worry lines crept across Sara’s forehead, and Cole's grin slowly disappeared. She pushed her glasses up her nose, she stood and stared. She heard him make the _faintest_ little noise, too quiet to pin down. Dismissal? Disappointment? Acceptance? The sound of giving up?

He tucked his chin to watch his fingertips unfastening the over-zipper buckles of his coat. His words were mild and friendly.

 _“Like the kitten by the dumpster with a broken tail._ Sara, I think you’re…worried? About me? Thank you. But, you shouldn’t be.”

She ignored his haunting comforts, as a fretting soul will do.

_‘I’m always home.’_

_Oh Jesus, I’m an asshole! **That’s** why he doesn’t like to talk about himself! This whole time, I thought… Cole isn’t taking showers because he’s seriously homeless? He’s weird and all, but – **homeless?!**_

_What is **wrong** with me?! **Of course he's fucking homeless!** I can’t – I can’t just let him live **outside!**  _ _And Marco's wife would never - I -_

Softly, stepping closer, her eyes vying for his own. “Cole…?”

And _now,_ from flirt to worried friend to _frightened._ Cole’s pale eyes flicked sharp and quick, latching onto hers before she finished questioning his name out loud. He wore no threat, but something in the _speed_ of him. Midnight made his eyes look eerie, piercing, _wild…_

Softly, “Yes.”

For the second time in just as many minutes, Sara wondered what the _fuck_ he was. Dread hitched her breath. Gentle as he seemed, lovestruck as she felt, in that moment Sara nearly changed her mind. She nearly ran inside. She _nearly_ slammed her door in his expectant, patient face.

Cole misinterpreted her fear of him, of course. He scrunched his nose and scowled, like Marco would when someone ordered lunch with one-too-many substitutions. The imitation was uncanny – even as he spoke, his terrified admirer cracked a smile.

“I must smell really bad.”

_Don’t be **stupid.** Whatever he is, Cole wouldn’t hurt a fly. He steals lettuce for the rabbits in the park, for fuck’s sake. Just…relax._

And she did. Sara stuffed her fears and questions back into the dusty attic-corner of her skull where they belonged. She clapped him on the arm, striving hard to keep her haywire heartstrings set to _chummy._

“Yea-a-ah. It’s pretty bad. Come on, we’ll clean you up.”

Cole obediently followed her inside, carelessly half-dragging his beloved jacket on the ground.

* * *

_Is this guy serious? ‘Penis soap?’ Is that a thing? ‘Eh…I don’t think Cole reads great, and he sure as shit doesn’t speak German. …I don’t think._

The clock was nearing 1 a.m. Sara’s phone was lying on the kitchen counter, sole subject of her scowling scrutiny. She was slumping with her belly flat against the chipped formica, index finger pecking at the screen. As she scrolled, she gnawed a cold leftover porkchop speared upon a bent-tined fork.

She was dressed for bedtime in a baggy t-shirt (with a bra for modesty, by God) and cotton shorts she would most certainly squirm out of in the middle of the night. Her damp hair was towel-turbaned on her head.

Meanwhile, Cole was snooping through the trove of artwork in her living room as only Cole could do. She’d hear a rustling here, a clattering there, a little ‘ _huh!’_ or _‘ooo!’_ of wonder. He sounded more delighted than a toddler at the zoo. She was so accustomed to Cole’s bantering with art, she barely heard him.

“She felt guilty for the puppy, but the dead one can’t feel sad. Oh – He said yes and changed his mind.” _Rattle, clatter, clank._ “She was right – no one else loves marshmallows that much. …He killed something. He doesn’t think he’s sorry.”

_A shower tutorial in a hoodie and a face mask. Real cute brah, **thanks a lot.**_

The familiar whisper-squeak of drawer-slide casters and another little _huh._ If she weren’t so busy delving into YouTube, Sara would have choked.

“Sad and happy, up and down and hungry, deeper than the bluest sea _…_ Sara?”

Absent, eyes still darting on the screen. “That’s me.”

“Did you make this?”

“Just a minute. Almost done.”

Patient silence. The noise of further ferreting.

YouTube had not one, but _five_ tutorials for showers at a glance. (What, teach him _herself?_ She’d die of shame and sexual frustration, and he’d _still_ need a bath. How many cold showers can a woman _take?)_

In the end, Sara settled on the beauty queen from Howcast.

_Cold rinse to help your circulation? Huh. Never heard that… Makes sense, I guess. Not really? Whatever._

Sara set her half-gnawed dinner on the counter with no plate. Her eyes kept to the screen as she passed through the doorway of the kitchen, explaining out loud.

_Move the slider back to 0:00, and…_

“So…” Sara poked YouTube’s “embiggen” button, and she nodded. “Ignore the stuff about saunas and rosemary oil, and uh, I don’t _have_ a bristle brush, but… this one’s pretty good. Maybe uh…do the whole video twice. Oh, my shampoo burns like _fuckass_ if you get it in your-…”

She looked up.

_Thaaat’s m’dildo._

Cole was sitting on her sagging metal futon frame just like it was a couch, and he was rooting through the top drawer of her side-table-turned-nightstand. When Sara saw her sixty dollar boyfriend resting in Cole’s lap, her explanation and her breathing paused.

Talk about emotional _exhaustion –_ she had never been so mortified in all her life. Her violated feelings jerked Cole to attention with an urgent haste no mortal man could boast. He didn’t disappear. He stopped _everything_ and stared across the room at her, eyes wide as a raccoon caught digging in the trash.

His voice was tight with nerves. “You’re angry. I’m doing something wrong.”

The deepest breath a person ever took. Even in her head, her frantic pitch was higher than a nine-year-old on helium.

_Ii-i, it’s fine, it’s **fine,** it’s okay, he doesn’t know, iit-it’s fine! Just have him put it back! Be cool! Put it back and do the shower thing! Be, be cool! FUCK-I’M-GOING-TO-HELL-GOD-DA-_

“… … …if you get it in your eyes. Put that back.”

Cole haltingly complied, his pale eyes locked on Sara like she had a shotgun pointed at his chest. His slender fingers eased the drawer shut with a quiet _clunk._

Browbeaten as he was, Sara saw his curiosity devouring him alive. She _knew_ that face. He would sulk like this for hours every time she intervened to stop him asking certain customers about why they left their wives, or why they want to drown their children, or Sara's favorite: What’s so wrong with meeting strangers in the parking lot behind the AMC at night?

He whispered it, but _oh,_ he asked. _Of course_ he asked.

“It…feels like you. It makes you happy. Why – ”

“It’s just a girl thing.”

“But-…this isn’t the bathroom…?”

 ** _“It’s a different girl thing. _**Will you just – _Here."_   She took the four wide strides required to cross her tiny room, she slapped her cell phone in his hand. Cole leaned back from her as if _he_ were afraid.

“Just watch the video, alright? The shampoo is the clear-ish one. Throw your clothes out here so I can wash them. I put pajamas and a towel in there for ya’.”

He sat and stared. She had to physically shoo him towards her bathroom. Seconds later, he was _hurling_ his clothing out her bathroom door. She yelped when one of his old sneakers hit the wall, hollering with her back turned to the door: “The fuck is _wrong_ with you!?”

“? Nothing? I'm supposed to throw it.”

“Just-… put it on the floor.” The door clicked shut, and seconds ticked. She added, _“Outside_ the door. I’m washing it, remember?”

“Oh,” he parroted. “You’re washing it.”

Finally, he got it right. He set his clothes outside the door and clicked it shut again.

Sara rolled her eyes and smiled to no one as she stood beside her unassembled futon, gazing absent at a painting on the wall. She thought: _This is **insane.**_ When her eyes slid down the wall to rest on Cole’s thrown shoe, she found she didn’t care.

The faucet squeaked, and water started hammering the tub. The glass door to Sara’s shower rattled open-closed.

Sara crouched to pluck Cole’s sneaker from the floor. As she crossed the room to gather up his clothes, she checked the tongue for size – 11.5. His jeans were 30x34’s, and they were baggy. A quick inventory re-confirmed an observation that made Sara blush each time Cole took to tip toes in Nostima’s kitchen – he did not wear _anything_ beneath his sagging jeans.

“Sara?”

She leaned close to the door with her arms full of his clothes. She raised her voice so he could hear her over running water.

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“The water isn’t coming from the top.”

Her eyes scanned as she searched for words. “Use the-…Pull the trigger on the spigot towards the ceiling.”

He was silent as he puzzled. The tub continued running. Sara tried again. “There’s a button on the piece of metal where the water’s coming out. Pull it up!”

The showerhead kicked over with a satisfying hiss. Cole raised his voice. “She says warm, not hot. How do I – ”

“Just point the handle at the ceiling!”

“What?”

Her face flushed as she shifted all his clothes into one arm and cracked the door a sliver, her cheeks sore with fighting a disbelieving grin. She repeated her instructions as her lungs filled up with steam. To her credit, Sara didn't peek.

“I always just point the handle at the ceiling, babe. …You can’t feel temperature?”

_Babe? You just called him **babe.**_

The faucet squeaked. Cole cheerily responded, “No. But, I can hear when someone’s dinner is too hot. Soup does it the most.”

“Huh…that’s nuts.”

"No, _soup."_

She giggled like a school girl. "No, I mean - ..." Ne _vermind. Too tired._ _  
_

_...He **does** always warn people that the soup is hot._

Sara closed the bathroom door and headed for her laundry closet, all smiles and squirmy shoulders. Her little washer was the newest thing in her apartment by a couple decades, her landlord’s bright idea to hook a renter in a shithole – and it worked. This was a very temperamental two-in-one appliance. The _washing_ part was great; some days it dried her clothes, other days it just…tossed them around.

Her building’s hot water heater was a workhorse, especially at 1 a.m. – no need to wait for Cole to take his shower. Sara washed their stuff together. Seeing his clothes spin around with hers in soapy water was a _shameless_ treat. She watched until the novelty wore off.

She melted into bed, snuggling in her blankets while she waited. She left the lights on, certain she could stay awake. Her mind made half-baked plans to take him shopping for new clothes.

When Cole at last emerged, pink-skinned and squeaky clean beneath her borrowed clothes, he found Sara fast asleep with a dopey smile plastered on her face. Even the buzzer on the drier didn’t wake her. For quite some time, he crouched and watched her sleep.

He turned out all the lights before he left.

* * *

_Later, around 4 a.m…_

Sara’s kitchen faucet was in dire need of specialized attention. Every time she palmed the lever of her sink to ‘on’, her pipes would creak and rumble with a groan so strong her dirty dishes rattled on the counter. The flow of water always came, though it was seconds late and sputtering. This quirky plumbing made her smirk no matter what her mood – it sounded like an earthquake, or Godzilla disemboweling her apartment. For better or for worse, Sara never bothered to complain.

Her kitchen sink’s hydraulic symphony did _not_ make Sara happy when it hit her sleeping ears around 4 o’clock in the morning. She jerked awake and upright with a half-scream, she spat a startled exclamation.

**_“FUCK!”_ **

Three gasping breaths before her lungs locked up with fright. Her head snapped towards the kitchen as she stared tight-wound and wild-eyed through the gloom, knuckles white with fisting at her tangled comforter. When her imagination’s creaking hounds of hell began to sputter like familiar running water, Sara sighed with tremoring relief.

_Jesus, shit. The faucet finally broke. Figures it would happen in the middle of the night…_

Sara’s thoughts continued as she clawed her way to standing.

_Water bill’ll be a real bitch…maybe there’s a knobby-thing to turn it off, like the one behind the toilet?_

She pawed her sleepy eyes. Bare toes picked their way through life’s familiar clutter, eyes adjusting to the dark – there was _some_ light spilling from the kitchen, thanks to the streetlamp by her kitchen window. As she walked she went to scratch her shoulder, and she winced.

_That’s right…My sunburn from the lake. The lake…_

She smiled like a child on Christmas morning as she reoriented to her waking life.

_Oh! It’s probably just Co-_

A voice abruptly started speaking. Sara hadn't reached the kitchen yet - she couldn't _see,_ but she could hear him loud and clear in spite of running water. Recitation, no inflections, flat and dark and _angry._ Her dragging footsteps froze.

_“No taste, no fight, all feeling with no screaming, making her a thing. ‘How about the news last night?’ Not what it means. They think it makes them live.”_

The unfiltered hatred in that voice sent a chill down Sara’s spine. She began to back away, mind screaming white with fright: _Help. What do I do, what do I –_

Suddenly, the monster in her kitchen sounded gentle and familiar. Still, the faucet hissed. “I would never kill you, Sara. You don’t have to be afraid.”

His voice pulled her like a magnet.  _It is, it's him. It's **Cole.**_

“Cole! _Jesus,_ what are y – ” She rushed into the kitchen as she spoke, she hit the lights. Cole was standing at her kitchen sink, dressed in her spare pajamas. He was washing Sara’s chef knife, making slow and rhythmic circles on the metal with his fingers.

He was rubbing _blood_ off of the blade. 

Water cleaned the malice from his hands. She glimpsed his knuckles, raw and bleeding. Cole’s arms were smeared with crimson gore from his wrists up to his elbows. There were red streaks on the backside of his shirt - _Someone’s_ bloody fingers had been clawing, _begging,_ dragging frantic at his back. The front of him was _saturated_ red around his chest and shoulders. Stark red murder soaked his butter-yellow hair and ran in slender rivers down his face, dripping in the sink like lazy rain.

Sara's pupils turned to pinpricks. Somehow, she was scrabbling backwards on her hands and feet across the kitchen floor. She trembled, and her voice shook with her. “ _Wh-….what the fuck…”_

She thought his eyes were frightening _before._ Cole twisted his bare feet against the ground to turn and look at her, the knife still in his hand. His hell-stained face was melancholy, calm.

“…You don’t understand. They _liked_ it, wanted more. She…used to have a name, to smile. She won’t forget. They’re dead, but she remembers.”

“Y-…You… _killed...._ someone...”

He reached out to set the knife down on her counter with a quiet _chink,_ his pale eyes never leaving her. Her hot brain tripped on _red with blue, red with blue, red with blue_ _and white._

“Four. Sara, they weren't sorry.”

Sara heard herself begin to scream. She didn't see him wince. She recoiled in horror when Cole lunged across the kitchen with his outstretched hand in Sara’s face, his eyes and voice filled with remorse.

_“Forget.”_

Then came the hush of total blackness. Nothing.  _Nothing._

Cole nudged her mind back to its state of being before he messed things up – in this case, fast asleep. She crumpled backwards like a puppet girl with razors on her strings. Lightning-fast, he knelt to catch her head and guide her to the floor. His fingers lingered at the base of Sara’s skull before he let her go.

_“…I’m **sorry.”**_

He reached between his shoulder blades to fist his dirty shirt and yank it off, lest his chest leave bloodstains on her side. Cole scooped Sara up into his arms like she was made of glass, he carried her to bed. All the while, his worried eyes remained transfixed upon her sleeping face.

Cole lingered next to Sara’s lumpy futon in the dark, squeezing her unconscious body with his head hung low. Minutes passed before he tucked her in.

* * *

And then, their sunny little morning.

Cole stood half-dressed and waiting, looking down on her with spatula in hand. Sara lingered on all fours, cheek squished against the doorless doorjamb of the kitchen. Her memory flailed for traction like a Lincoln stuck in mud.

This scene felt so…familiar.

_Fehh, just déjà vu. It’s nothing._

The rabbit on his chest became a fixed point in her drowsy mind; she didn’t hear him asking for a cooking lesson.

_Cole has a tattoo…? Friggin’… **how?**  
_

He only owned one set of clothes, had no concept of money. He _did_  love art, but-....

_It's gorgeous..._

_“Warm, brighter than an air balloon. Pulling, pulling…What’s it like? I always wanted one._ Sara, what's the – … _Oh.”_   His trademarked, gentle little chuckle. “You want to touch my heartbunny. It…feels the same. I think.”

Cole set the spatula aside and moved to squat in front of Sara on her crumb-strewn kitchen floor. Long fingers circled Sara’s wrist, guiding her pressure-pinked palm up from the ground to rest against his chest.

So close…so _close._ His lean chest filled her vision, shading Sara from the morning light that glowed angelic in his flaxen hair. His skin was soft and warm beneath her hand; his pale complexion made her fingers look so _tan_. He smelled like Sara’s cheap-o sugar cookie Suave shampoo. She could see the colors on his heart and hear the breath that whispered in his nose. Her fingernails began to trace. You know, for art.

She cleared her throat. She struggled for an even tone of voice. “It’s beautiful. Where’d you get it?”

His eyes boggled a bit. He drew back on his haunches to tuck his chin and look down at her fingers. They stilled just above his nipple.

“…? _Get_ it? It’s right here. On my chest.”

“…Oh. Right.”

They stayed that way until Cole's eyes left Sara's hand to stare at her distracted face.

"… … …That won't work."

"Huh?"

"You can't eat a picture. It's not real."

Sara jerked her hand away and surged to standing.

“What, I - No, haha, you must've - I'm just hungry! Eggs!" She clapped her hands and rubbed them fast together. "Let's make those eggs!"

Cole watched Sara cook her breakfast, just the once. From that day on, she'd _always_ wake to find two eggs over easy waiting on her table with a side of buttered toast. No salt, extra pepper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [tumblr](http://mithrakana.tumblr.com/) now!
> 
> Deciphering the Colespeak - Four men roofied and assaulted a young woman. "How about the news last night?" was their way of back-slapping one another about their exploits in public conversation, say...at brunch. With the _wrong_ waiter.


	9. One of Countless Memories that Wasn't His (Pt. 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!!! Every time I start to write a note like this I get so excited to communicate with you, and then I'm going - _Shhhh. That isn't why they're here. Keep it simple._
> 
> I'll be off the grid for 1 week, starting tomorrow. You may notice a slight delay in the next update. You may also notice, this is only half a chapter. Had to post somethin', so I could give you a heads up about the wait! Right? Right! <333  
>  ****  
> Relevant Lore  
> [Eostre](http://mithrakana.tumblr.com/post/125430602551/eostre-by-duirwaighstudios-sweet-eostre-how-i): Goddess of the Dawn, of Spring, of Love, of New Beginnings
> 
> Sunna: Goddess of the Sun, of Day, of Energy, of Power
> 
> Sinthgunt: Sunna's sister; Goddess of the Moon, of Night, of Healing, of Rest
> 
> Ziu: God of War, of Glory

* * *

Pale hair clinging to a battered face that throbbed in freezing spray. Her lips trembled as they bled, the water thinned her blood and washed it down the drain. Hands splayed flat upon her pregnant belly, Bonnie’s one true joy. Her fair skin was taut and goosepricked there. Her navel popped from baby’s lack of space.

The roar of water kept her whispered worship in the shower.

_Sweet Eostre, bless him. Bless my son and keep him safe._

By fate or chance or answered prayer, her baby came with Easter’s dawn in 1962.

* * *

Like most families in their neighborhood, they only owned one car. Rich was home on Saturdays, so Saturday was Bonnie's grocery shopping day. He’d sleep ‘til noon, and then he’d start to drink. In all those years, he never noticed that his woman waited ‘til the evening to hit the shops.

Their secret love, it lived in stolen gaps like these. Bonnie was herself with him, and _only_ him. On those car rides to and from the local Sainsbury’s, her little son would rat-a-tat his music on the seat before he grew enough to reach the dash. In unison, they’d bob their bodies to the beat. Between his rhythm and their hushed but joyful chatter, they never missed the radio they didn’t have.

At home, stillness was law. When the child would grow too comfortable and knuckle-thump his happy rhythm on the kitchen table, his mother’s guarding flesh would rush to shield him from his father’s wrath. The youngster wept for hours every time he saw his father strike his mother, and the crying only made the violence worse. Richard struck him first when he was five.

To protect her baby, mother taught him when to hide. She’d lived the nightmare long enough to see it coming; she was watchful, ever watchful, even when she bathed and slept. When the tide would swell, she’d mildly say:

“Did Miz Pimsy send your notebook home?”

She’d watch his gaze sink past his toes to find their orange and green linoleum, even as she kept the looming monster in the corner of her eye. She’d reach down to smooth his hair. Soothingly, she’d coo:

“It’s alright. Go get your notebook, little munchkin.”

Be it dinner time or noon, the well-trained child would lock his door and wait beneath his bed with all the lights off in his room. Mother bit her tongue to shield him from the screaming. She had a secret knock; she’d always wait ‘til dark to hide the marks. He was only five, but still - In spite of Mother’s efforts, baby knew. Every time, he’d hug her neck and cry.

And every time, she’d tuck her gentle angel in his bed and beg him not to blame himself.

And every time, he did.

* * *

Bonnie taught her son to worship as they lived: in closely guarded secret. By six years old, the boy knew every god and goddess in his mother’s heavy book. He knew their holidays. He knew his birthday was Eostre’s _very_ special day. He knew to wear his jacket wrong-side out on cloudy evenings when the moon was round, the better to ‘confusipate’ the fae. He knew that love was good, and it could live in _anything._ In hearts. In stones. In spiderwebs. In music.

He also knew the back parts of the book were _not_ for little boys.

Every third trimester, Bonnie snuck him out of school for Litha. Though June was hot and they were both too fair-skinned for such madness, they’d spend _hours_ tumbling, wrestling, laughing, dancing in the sun. Come afternoon, they’d loll together in the dandelion-scattered shade where mother read her secret book aloud.

Her sweaty son would cuddle close, bright eyes sticking to familiar pictures on the pages. As she recited with her mouth against his hair the boy scarfed oranges, and lemonade, and little honeyed buns she’d dyed with ‘color drops’ to match the sun. She taught him to arrange his orange peels with care, bright side _always_ facing up for Sunna to enjoy. When he was just a little older, he would be the one to read while mother watched and snacked.

“…Through this our love is known to Sunna who, delighted, spills her endless blessings from the sky. The radiance of Sunna’s kiss will never blister those who worship on Midsummer’s Day – As Sunna loves with light, Sinthgunt sends her nightingales to heal our skin with song.”

A frightened gasp. He poked an illustration, and he kept his finger there. One scene, mostly filled with Sunna’s longest day. There was but a sliver’s worth of darkness where her sister kept the night, hardly room enough for Sinthgunt and the birds and moths and fairy sprites to fit.

His honeyed fingerprint would never go away. On seeing it in years to come, Bonnie would remember how he shouted: “But Mummy! There’s no night!”

“Of course there is, munchkin. It’s a little one, but – see? It’s there.”

He made the sweetest noises when he was distressed. There was orange-yellow food mess on his face; mother left it there, the better to rejoice.

“Mmf – S’not _big_ enough!”

“For nightingales? It’s plenty big enough.”

“But why does Sunna make the bees?”

Bonnie had a one-way ticket on her baby’s bumpy train of thought; she didn’t skip a beat. “Eostre makes the bees and moths. They help the flowers grow. Flowers make fruit for everyone to eat!”

“But bees are yellow.”

“You’re right, munchkin. Sunna does love yellow things. I’m sure she likes the bees, but Sunna didn’t make them.”

“I’m not yellow. Does she love me?”

“You love her, don’t you?” A timid little nod. “Then, of course she does! See all the pretty things you made for her today? You _danced_ for her! Your hair is yellow, too. She loves you extra bunches.”

“Daddy’s hair is brown.”

“…Sunna still loves people who have different colored hair. Even no hair at all.”

“But Mummy, I _hate_ bees.”

 _Tut-tut._ “That’s not a very loving thing to say.”

“They _chase_ me!”

She poked his nose as though it were a button. _“You_ \- are Eostre’s favorite, super-special boy. Her bees don’t want to _get_ you, silly bean. They’re watching over you. Share your orange with them, love, and say you’re sorry to the buzzy bees. Wait – here. Break it open more for them. The chewy parts are hard for them to eat!”

Minutes later, as he stared transfixed upon the honeybees that swarmed his modest offering:

“Did I make Eostre angry, Mummy?”

“No. No, you didn’t make Eostre angry. She knows you’re a good boy.”

“Does she _get_ angry?”

“She might, sweetheart, but not at you.”

“…M’sorry, buzzy bees.”

Be it foolish or divine, they never woke sore-skinned the morning after Summer Solstice. Though his schoolmates called him pansyboy, he was the only child among the lot of them who wasn’t scared of bees.

* * *

One afternoon when he was seven, Bonnie’s son came through the kitchen door with bright red cheeks and eyes. The dark blue shorts that made his uniform were damp in front, and he could hardly breathe for crying.

She lay down with him right there on the kitchen floor, screen door still hanging open. She rubbed his back, she filled his burning ears with comfort, she reminded him to breathe. Her own tears started flowing before Bonnie saw the angry welts that marked his knuckles, palms and wrists.

“Oh, _munchkin_ …who did this to your hands!?”

It took half an hour of cuddling to coax the story from him. His words were broken, but a mother’s mind and eyes can fill the gaps.

Miss Bewley whipped her baby with a wooden ruler.

He’d been drumming on his desk in class. Miss Bewley called him to the front; she barked his name again when he was far too scared to go. Where other boys would grit their teeth against the sting, he flinched and sobbed and blubbered _suh-suh-sorry._

In front of _all_ of them. The cruelty of his day did not end with the class.

The next day, while her husband was at work, Bonnie phoned the headmaster of Embleton. The secretary never put her through. The older woman drawled: “There’s only so much _you_ can do about the boy’s behavior, Mrs. Edwards. You’re certain _Mister_ Edwards is aware? Boys his age tend to mind their fathers. …I’m sorry, no. Mr. Thompson is quite busy at the moment.”

Embleton Primary School was a fifteen minute walk.

A sunny day – extra makeup for the bruises, for the blotchy pink-red acne scars that marked her pasty face. Her woolen dress was far too hot, but in that heavy outfit she felt...hidden. Safer. She stood there with her fingers hovering before the door. Whispering with eyes shut tight, praying to a pagan deity her husband didn’t know.

_Eostre, grant me grace._

Mr. Thompson couldn’t spare the energy to lift his bulging eyeballs from the papers on his desk. The woman’s timid nature _begged_ to be ignored. She should have prayed to Ziu. (Well, perhaps not - Ziu rarely listened to the weak.)

“I assure you, Mrs. Edwards. Miss Bewley is well within her rights. She has warned your son about the noise for days.”

“My son, he’s…he’s a good a boy. Please, Mr. Thompso – ”

“We must have order in the classroom, Mrs. Edwards. Your... _son._ Was being disruptive. If you do not approve of Miss Bewley’s methods, I recommend you tend to his behavior at home. Though I must say, you are the only parent to complain in twenty years. It’s not as though she _harmed_ the boy. None of them are strangers to the lash.”

“But the, the bullying. He – ”

At last, Mr. Thompson tossed his reading glasses on his cluttered desktop in disgust. “Harmless sporting between boys. Madam, _please._ It seems to me your son could _use_ a dash of toughening up – Have your husband teach the boy to throw a bloody punch! A bit of roughhousing may cure him of his, his… _frailty._ Good **day,** Mrs. Edwards.”

Her woolen armor couldn’t stop her silent tears. She heard Mr. Thompson mutter with his secretary as she left.

“Such a _sallow_ woman.”

“You’ve heard the boy was keeping spiders in his desk? Bloody _spiders!”_

 _Harr-umph!_ “…Disturbing, really.”

* * *

He would never know the way his jobless mother scrimped and stole to fund his private drumming lessons. _She_ would never know the way he stashed his lesson money in the toe of his left shoe. No matter how exhaustively they duffed him up, for four years straight the bullies didn’t find his dues.

Three nights a week, he had to run over a mile to beat his father home from work. Secretly, his smiling mother watched him racing through the twilight from her kitchen window.

On those stolen evenings, he could be a child. Bonnie loved to see her son explode into the kitchen, out of breath and full of life. The sweaty scamp would snatch her wooden spoons and whirl around the room, drumming out his noisy joy on every surface he could find. He’d speak so rapidly she couldn’t understand a word of it. She’d shoo his grubby fingers from the biscuits – he tried it every night, to make her laugh. She’d chase the squealing boy around the table ‘til she caught him in her apron like a butterfly to make him wash his calloused hands.

When her husband’s tires came crunching in the driveway, they’d rush into their chairs and kiss each other on the mouth to seal their secret. She’d whisper, “One more hit!” and he would rat-a-tat upon the table with his spoons. When he grew older, in his passion he would snap them. Mother kept a stock of spares.

Four years of this, and father never knew.

* * *

One of many lazy mornings back in 1973. Her son was eleven, and her husband was asleep. Neither one of them had grown too old for blanket tents, but mother was too pregnant to partake. She was sitting in her favorite chair beside the window, thinking of her belly as he played.

“What should we name her, munchkin?”

He mumbled from the safety of his fort. “Curly Wurly.”

A startled sniff of laughter. “I told you twice, we’re _going_ to the supermarket later. You’ll get your Curly Wurly, stinker.”

“But we’re supposed to name things after things we love!”

“That’s very true. But Mummy wants to name her something _Eostre_ loves.”

He peeked between his makeshift tentflaps at long last, a sleepy-headed mess. She hated her reflection, but she _loved_ his little face.

“Can we name her Bunny? Like Eostre’s ones, with lanterns?”

Her voice was soft with contemplation. His face was anxious, hopeful.

“The dawn rabbits Eostre sends to tickle sleepy Sunna with their whiskers. ...Cole, I _love_ that name.”

He could be made to beam so easily. “Yea’! Me too! Will Eostre love it, too?”

“Mmhm, she will. She’ll love it even more, because you picked it.”

* * *

Her doctor never bothered to explain placenta previa. “Try to take it easy, Mrs. Edwards,” was all he cared to say. Bonnie was the sort to worry, not to ask. Those last few months, her fearful heart would keep her up at night.

Mother fretted at her belly so, she missed the monthly payment for his lessons. From day one, the instructor had agreed to never bill by mail. Instead, he sent an invoice home with Cole.

Hell was a folded piece of yellow carbon copy paper fallen from a young man’s trouser pocket when he trotted up the stairs to see his mother, hot and sweaty from the long rush home.

Baby Bunny showed up early, and with bruises. To Richard’s credit, he _did_ cry when Bonnie passed away. He told the midwife that she tripped, fell down the stairs. The little boy scream-sobbing in the corner never said a word.


End file.
